[Dixielandjazz] JRM & WM _ Sidewalk blues

[Anton Crouch]

Hello all

Thanks to Ken Mathieson for raising the matter of "rhythmic coherence" in a comparison of JRM's and WM's performances of/Sidewalk blues/. Very well put.

It's well demonstrated in JRM's/  Liebestraum/  passage for cornet and three clarinets - a passage that Rudi Blesh describes as "sweetly harmonized".Morton's genius lies in pushing the sweetness to the limit and then blowing it away with swinging dissonance.  Marsalis avoids the challenge and gives us, first, a trumpet solo and, then, a saxophone solo over the reeds.

On a different matter, the studio ledger for the 1926 Morton recording lists two cornets in the instrumentation and  the/Liebestraum/  passage used to be taken as evidence thatthis is correct. I only hear one cornet (George Mitchell, playing with a very full tone) and subscribe to Laurie Wright's theory that the "second cornet" is a mistake by the studio clerk who saw Marty Bloom carrying the Klaxon horn that is used for special effect.

All the best,
Anton